Russian airstrikes kill 3 civilians in Idlib, Syria

IDLIB, Syria

At least three civilians were killed in Russian airstrikes in the Idlib de-escalation zone in northwestern Syria, a local civil defense agency said on Saturday.

The Russian warplanes carried out airstrikes on the Idlib villages of Ma’rzita, Maaret Hurmah and Uraynibah, according to the Syrian opposition’s aircraft observatory.

The civil defense agency White Helmets said the casualties took place in Ma’rzita.

The Assad regime also carried out mortar, gun and rocket attacks at Kafr Nabl district and three other villages of Idlib.

Civil defense teams launched search and rescue operation following the airstrikes.

The death toll from the attacks on residential areas in the Idlib de-escalation zone amounted to 75, including 13 children, over the last month, said the White Helmets.

According Syria’s Response Coordination Group, a local non-governmental organization, the attacks of the Assad regime and its supporter Russia has displaced some 40,000 civilians in the first half of November within the Idlib de-escalation zone.

Turkey and Russia agreed last September to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone where acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.

The Syrian regime and its allies, however, have consistently broken the terms of the cease-fire, launching frequent attacks inside the zone.

The de-escalation zone is currently home to some four million civilians, including hundreds of thousands displaced in recent years by regime forces from throughout the war-weary country.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than 10 million others displaced, according to UN officials.

*Writing by Dilara Hamit in Ankara